The showman will mount show trials
There is a “The South will rise again” vibe to all things MAGA. Donald Trump means to have his revenge on all (in his mind) “what done him wrong.” Anyone and everyone associated with the Russia investigation and Trump’s impeachments must pay, starting with former FBI director James Comey. Vindictive prosecution, you say? You damn betcha. The January 6 insurrection sparked by Trump himself that we all watched live on television must be recast as the War of Deep State Aggression. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) will start erecting a new set of monuments to the valorous MAGA combatants.
But first, MAGA Republicans on a new House panel will rewrite the history of the day (Politico):
It’s the latest sign that the deadly riot remains a wound on Congress that might never fully heal amid ferocious partisan sparring. Retribution, not reconciliation, appears to be the prime motivation behind the new probe, with the Republicans behind it still bitter over the work of the panel’s previous iteration, which was largely led by Democrats and concluded President Donald Trump was singularly to blame for the violence inflicted by his supporters.
One GOP member of the new panel, Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins, did not rule out questioning members of the prior committee.
“They were not invested in actual investigative work anyway,” said Higgins, who has pushed an unfounded theory that FBI agents helped coordinate the events at the Capitol. “That thing was never legitimate. It was always biased. And therefore, if we question them, it may be with the angle of having them implicate themselves in lies that they presented as truth.”
“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R) is “talking to different entities” and reviewing documents for potential targets of the new investigation. “We need to look at it from a factual standpoint,” he told Politico.
The history of the day must be deodorized to remove the stink from Trump and the roughly 1,500 convicted participants he pardoned and characterized as “political prisoners.”
That previous select committee concluded that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, and months of false claims to sow doubt about his defeat in the 2020 election, inflamed his supporters shortly before he directed them to march on the Capitol. But the review also acknowledged that Capitol security officials were underprepared for the onslaught, leading to the breach of the building and several near-confrontations between rioters and lawmakers.
“They can’t even seem to settle on which conspiracy theory they want to advance,” said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who served on the previous Jan. 6 panel and serves on the new one. “Was it Antifa? Did it not happen at all? Did Donald Trump really win the election? They can’t figure out what it is they want to say, and it’s because it’s just a tissue of lies and conspiracy theories.”
Raskin is on Trump’s list. As is New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff. The showman will have his show trials. Convictions are a bonus for Trump. It is enough that he will drag his enemies through the mud and damage their reputations and family finances. He wants them to hurt.
Trump’s list of targets is growing:
The White House released a list of nearly 30 elected officials — all of them Democrats — who the Trump administration said incited violence against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents throughout the U.S.
[…]
The White House named the following elected officials on the list, as well as quoted each of them:
- Gov. Tim Walz smeared ICE as the “modern-day Gestapo.”
- Gov. Gavin Newsom likened ICE to “secret police,” calling them “authoritarian” and proclaiming a “right to push back.”
- Gov. JB Pritzker claimed the country is becoming “Nazi Germany” because ICE is “grabbing people off the street and disappearing them.”
- Rep. Robin Kelly smeared ICE as the “Gestapo” and a “betrayal.”
- Rep. Jasmine Crockett compared ICE to “slave patrols.”
- Rep. Sylvia Garcia referred to ICE agents as “thugs.”
- Rep. Delia Ramirez attacked ICE as “a terror force.”
- Rep. Pramila Jayapal called ICE agents “deranged,” accused them of “kidnapping,” and said “resistance” to ICE is “inspiring.”
- Rep. Rashida Tlaib said ICE is “terrorizing our communities” and “turning our country into a fascist police state,” and called it a “rogue agency.”
- Rep. Ayanna Pressley said ICE is “terrorizing our communities.”
- Rep. Max Frost compared ICE operations to “some of the worst horrors and crimes against humanity” in history.
- Rep. John Larson said ICE is “the SS” and “the Gestapo.”
- Rep. LaMonica McIver incited people to “shut down the city” because “we are at war.”
- Rep. Stephen Lynch smeared ICE agents as “the Gestapo” and “nondescript thugs.”
- Rep. Dan Goldman compared federal agents to “secret police” who must be unmasked.
- Rep. Becca Balint called ICE agents “vigilantes” who can’t be trusted.
- Rep. Ilhan Omar said ICE agents are “vile and beyond cruel,” and that the agency should be abolished.
- Rep. Nikki Budzinski called ICE agents “dangerous and reckless.”
- Sen. Bernie Sanders asked people to “figure out a way to stop ICE from what they are doing as soon as possible.”
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren claimed ICE is “intentionally stok[ing] fear” and “tear[ing] communities apart.”
- Rep. Hakeem Jeffries implored people to “fight” the Trump Administration “in the streets” and declared ICE agents “will be unsuccessful” in protecting their identities “no matter what it takes.”
- Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared ICE agents to the neo-Nazi group NSC-131.
- Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused ICE of being “secret police” who are “terrorizing our communities.”
- Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass spread a disgusting, fabricated hoax that ICE “kidnapped” a woman on her way to work.
- Rep. Gil Cisneros claimed ICE has “terrorized” people through “racial profiling.”
- Rep. Eric Swalwell said it was his “priority” to ensure ICE agents “are no longer faceless,” comparing them to “some 1800s bank robber or some KGB officer in Russia.”
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said ICE “should not exist.”
- Rep. Kweisi Mfume challenged the Trump Administration to “a street fight.”
- Rep. Jerry Nadler accused ICE agents of “hiding misbehavior because otherwise why would they be wearing masks?”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Bluesky account issued a statement:
The White House knows exactly what it was doing when they published a list of Democrats who have used their voice to call out Trump & Miller’s ICE abuses.
The list is now being used by the far right as an enemies list. It’s reckless. It’s dangerous. And it puts lives at risk.
Again: MAGA disciples who once raged at Hillary Clinton over her deplorables comment bristle today at comparisons to 1930s Germany. Just not enough to reconsider behaviors that evoke them.
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